1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to electronic communication, and in particular to the use of synchronous messaging applications. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for enhancing the utilization of synchronous messaging applications.
2. Description of the Related Art
Instant messaging has become one of the more popular (and non-intrusive) means of communication at home, in office, on vacation, or wherever a computer is available with software necessary for instant messaging. Fast growing web activity has lead to expanded utilization of synchronous collaborative environments for virtual classrooms, corporate collaboration, and multi-user networking. Multi-user messaging applications allow various communities to experience noninvasive communication for an unlimited time, from their location of choice, and in their preferred environment.
Synchronous collaborative environments, or multi-user instant messaging applications are frequently utilized in corporate, educational, and recreational communication. Existing synchronous collaborative applications, such as IBM Community Tools®, IBM/Lotus Sametime Connect®, AOL Instant Messenger®, Yahoo! Chat®, MSN Messenger®, and Google®, bridge communication gaps daily. Each messaging system provides a messenger interface and means for a user to send and receive messages via a messaging server. While the method of sending and receiving messages has proven to effective, users are frequently faced with disadvantages.
Inconveniences associated with current messaging applications yield a number of other problems. Multi-user instant messaging applications do not provide support for indicating a single message's context in response to another user's message. Messages are simply ordered sequentially, and each message is displayed when retrieved/forwarded from the server. In synchronous collaborative environments, users may submit questions, answers, or comments in response to a preceding or out of sequence message. Many tools have a lag time as a result of application speed, network speed, or user response time. During this lag time, other users may submit or send another message, completely out of context relative to another user's previous message. The next response, in sequence may appear to be in response to the last message, when the next response may actually be in response to other previously-received messages, such as the next to last message, and/or in response to a message originating from a different user.
Local users in an instant messaging community may send messages intended for a particular remote user, or send sequential messages before receiving a reply from the intended remote user. While communicating through instant messaging, local and remote users are unable to optimally utilize messaging applications because messaging applications do not provide any means to connect a user's response to another user's related message when multiple messages are received prior to the user generating the response (i.e., the response is generated out of sequence relative to the message to which the response is directed).
Thus, an instant messaging user may send (or receive) multiple messages prior to sending (or receiving) a response from the remote user. Messages sent (or received) out of context may result in miscommunication between the users. Users are forced to spend valuable time sorting out the miscommunication, which may not be apparent and thus lead to incorrect information being accepted as a response. Receiving a correct answer/response is very often of great value, whether in the corporate, educational, or recreational setting. For example, a simple “Yes” answer following two or three questions received in succession could apply to any one of the three questions, which may originate from multiple users in a collaborative environment. The wrong user may assume the answer to his question to be “Yes” when the correct answer is on fact “No”. Currently, instant messaging applications do not support means to provide an indicator to which a message can be related. This miscommunication may result in real problems, especially in a situation when such communication is not simply casual, inconsequential exchanges. Additionally, the users may spend valuable time repeating a question following an out-of-sequence answer.